Intel spruces up integrated graphics

Chipzilla has been working flat out to improve the video quality of its integrated graphics cores.

While Intel has seen a dollar in making integrated chip and graphics packages, so far the video quality has been a much lower standard than the chips it sells them with. This means that those buying the i7 chips have had to buy an external graphics card.

Now, according to a press release, Intel has unveiled new drivers for its Intel HD Graphics cores that boosts performance of video games by up to 10 percent.

It has based this 10 percent figure on the performance of computer games like Starcraft II, Batman Arkham City and World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria.

Intel’s drivers support OpenCL 1.2 for general purpose programming using CPU, GPU and hardware acceleration on Intel HD Graphics, particularly on the HD Graphics 4000 core found in the Ivy Bridge chips.

It is also surprising that Intel is finally getting around to the optimisation of video games. We should point out however that it has a long way to go. The actual speed offered by HD Graphics 4000 is so low that a ten per cent boost is not much. Ten per cent of nothing is still nothing.

However for those who have Intel HD graphics, new drivers are better than a poke in the eye with a short stick. You can download them here.